Happy to say that the Hebrew edition of Redshirts (translated by Zafrir Grossman) won this year’s Geffen Award — Israel’s most notable SF/F award — in the category of Best Translated Science Fiction Novel. A fine honor! This is my second Geffen (the first was for the Old Man’s War back in 2007), and it’s as much a thrill the second time around.

My thanks to Mr. Grossman for his fine work — it’s as much his award as mine. Also thanks to my Israeli publisher, Opus Press. I hope they’re as happy as I am. And of course thanks to the fans who voted for the book!

This is cool:Redshirts being used as part of a church sermon (specifically at St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Madison, Wisconsin). It is, logically enough, being used a bit like a parable (or at least a framing device) to help discuss a larger and more complicated theological idea. I like it when my work finds use in interesting ways like this. The sermon’s pretty good, too.

And they are two very different takes on the same book, I would say. Of the Polish one, I’m mildly curious as to how Adam Baldwin got on the cover, not to mention the young lady with the chest plate tattoo; neither of them really seem to be in uniform. I will say that the reviews of the book that I’ve seen in Polish (via Google Translate) pretty much seem to say “okay, that cover, maybe you should ignore that” and that otherwise it’s a good translation of the novel. So, yeah. I’m just going to go with my “the publisher knows their market better than I do” line, here. The Korean cover, on the other hand, I can be unreservedly enthusiastic about, because I think it’s clever and funny and captures a lot of the spirit of the book, and I really like it. And there you have it.

I realize that yesterday’s announcement of the Redshirts TV series was a little light on the details on my end — I was literally about to walk out the door for the day when I saw it — so for those of you who were craving additional detail, here you are, in a handy Q & A form.

Dude, did you know?

Yes, and yes, someone did actually ask me this, although to be fair I think it was more of the excitement of the moment than actual cluelessness.

To expand on that answer, yes, I did know, because it’s my book and nothing regarding my intellectual property gets done (legally, anyway) without my consent. I was caught a little by surprise by the specific timing of the announcement, but I knew the announcement was coming.

Why didn’t you let us know?

Because part of the deal with signing for a TV series is that you keep quiet until the official announcement. Also, you know. You don’t want to announce something before all the “i”s are dotted and “t”s crossed. And that takes a bit of time. And also patience, which I am not good at, but oh, well.

How long has this been going on?

There’s been interest in Redshirts pretty much from the moment it dropped. I remember being on tour, landing in LA and getting three e-mails in rapid sequence, one from my editor telling me we hit the NY Times hardcover bestseller list, one from a producer telling me he wanted a meeting, and another from my film/tv agent telling me I need to call him immediately. So that was nice. We spent a lot of time fielding offers on this one.

This particular deal got into high gear after Redshirts won the Hugo. After that happened, in relatively quick order (for Hollywood) Jon Shestack and Ken Kwapis put together a package and pitched it to FX, who took it on. And then came the Great Contractual Negotiation Period, which in Hollywood can last for some time, out of which we are now just emerging.

(This is, incidentally, a useful data point for people who argue whether or not winning a Hugo means anything outside the SF/F nerd tribe; in this case, yes, it really did. I expect this will start another round of gnashing and fuming and wailing about the award.)

How do you feel about the others involved in the deal?

I feel very good about them. I’ve known Jon Shestack for some time; he’s been a fan of my work for years, which is a positive thing when it comes to adapting a book for the screen. Among everything else Ken Kwapis has done, he directed the finale of The Office, and has likewise directed episodes of Parks and Recreation, Malcolm in the Middle, Freaks and Geeks and The Larry Sanders Show. He gets how humor works on television. And FX — well, they’ve been on a roll recently, haven’t they, with their shows? There’s nothing here I don’t like.

(There is one other principal involved: Alexandra Beattie, who is Ken Kwapis’ producing partner, and who I know little about other than her imdb page. However I have no doubt she is awesome.)

One of the reasons these things take time is that there is no point doing a deal just to do a deal; you want to have people working on it that you think can do justice to the material and who can actually get it out to the world. This is a good team. I’m happy to hand my work over to them and work to get it on screen.

How involved will you be with the series?

I’ll be an executive producer and consultant for the series, which means I will be involved to a fair degree. More than that I can’t say, not to be mysterious about it but because these are early days and we still have a lot to figure out, not the least of which is what my schedule is going to be for the rest of 2014. I have a book to write in there somewhere, you know.

Are you going to move to LA, sleep with starlets and get hooked on blow?

The answer to all the above is “probably not.” Depending on my level of involvement I may eventually spend more time in LA than I do, but have no plans to move on a permanent basis. I’m a little old and set in my ways to start doing cocaine. And regardless of any personal desire to sleep with starlets (which is pretty low in any event), I don’t imagine any starlets will wish to sleep with me. That’s fair.

When will this make it to TV?

Dunno. We have a lot to do, including finding writers, producing a script FX likes, and so on. Having a deal in place doesn’t mean you’re on screen in a flash. I’d like to think it will take the time it takes to get it right.

Are you worried they are going to ruin the book?

No. The book is done and won’t change, for better or worse. The TV series will be an adaptation of the book, and will follow the book to a greater or lesser extent depending on the needs of the series. You should right now get used to the idea that the series will not exactly mirror the book.

Also, keep in your mind that changes that might happen won’t automatically suck. TV is a different medium than novels; each have advantages and disadvantages. We’re going to make a version of Redshirts for television that (hopefully) takes maximum advantage of the medium’s potential.

Hey, you should cast [insert name here]!

We’re not at casting yet. Be assured I have my own wish list for people to be in the show, which I will communicate to the others involved. There’s no guarantee people on my wish list will make it into the show, however, for all sorts of various reasons (they may not be available. They may not want to be involved. They may be attacked by an ice shark between now and then. Etc).

I will totally sleep with you to be involved in this series.

Thanks! I’m taken. And, yeah. Not the way I do things, I gotta say.

How do I get involved with this series, not involving sleeping with you?

If you’re a writer? I suppose you would have your people get in touch with Kwapis/Beattie’s people. Everyone else: Wait, I think. They’ll cast/staff as appropriate to whatever stage we’re at.

I should note that I am not at this point (or, really, likely in the future to be) responsible for any staffing decisions. So trying to butter me up or work through me on this is not likely to have the result you want, and will probably eventually annoy me.

Did you make piles of money off your deal?

(Yes, people ask.)

I’m happy with the deal financially, otherwise I wouldn’t have signed it. Beyond that I’m going to keep mum about the details, if you don’t mind (and even if you do). I will say that as with most deals involving Hollywood, the real payday is on the backend. So let’s hope it gets done.

I think Redshirts was awful and you don’t deserve this.

Ha! Sucks to be you, then.

That’s great about Redshirts, but don’t you also have a deal in Hollywood for Old Man’s War? What’s up with that?

Patience.

Finally: Thank you, everyone, for all your congratulations and good wishes yesterday and today. I’m really happy about this. And I’m glad you all seem to be happy about it too.

Which is being added to the ebook versions as we speak, and will be on the print versions with the next edition:

Can’t complain about that. Also, “Hugo Award Winning Author” or some variation of it is likely to be added to the covers of the other books as they go to reprint.

Those of you aware of my history may ask, as the Redshirts win was actually my third Hugo, why we haven’t mentioned Hugos on book covers before. The short answer is that the other Hugos, while awesome, were in non-fiction categories, and neither I nor Patrick, my editor, felt it would have been appropriate to use them as cover page marketing for my fiction work (we did note the Hugo for Hate Mail in the bio material, which is usually inside copy).

This is not to cast aspersion on anyone else who does or would, mind you; with so many things, this is a personal judgment call. Now that I have a Hugo for fiction, it’s full speed ahead. Can’t wait to see this cover on a printed copy.

(I wrote this up so that when the award was announced, if Redshirts won I would be able to press a button and have it post, because I am otherwise occupied at the American Library Association conference this weekend. If it doesn’t win, of course, then none of you will ever see this, and I will delete it at some point. I recognize this explanation is a little meta. But then, so is Redshirts.)

The other finalists for the award were Iain M. Banks’ The Hydrogen Sonata; Lois McMaster Boujold’s Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance; James S.A. Corey’s Caliban’s War and Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312. This is a very fine field of finalists, any of whom would of course have been an excellent winner. I was thrilled to share a slate with all of them.

As I was unable to be at the Locus Award Weekend because it conflicted with ALA, my wife Krissy went to Seattle on my behalf. If the award won (and if you’re reading this it did), this is the acceptance speech she gave for me:

Let me begin by apologizing for not being here today to accept this award; I am in Chicago, hanging out with librarians. As you can see, in my place you have my wife, and I’m sure you’ll agree this is a more than fair substitution.

I am delighted by this award, more than I can express in this speech. Thank you Locus and to the voters in its annual poll. Thanks also to everyone at Tor and in particular my editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Thanks also to the folks at Audible, including Steve Feldberg, and also to Wil Wheaton. Additional thanks to Ethan Ellenberg, my agent, and my wife Kristine.

However, I have one confession to make: I was hoping for a different outcome for this award. I was pulling for Iain M. Banks to win, not only for The Hydrogen Sonata, which is amply deserving of the award, but for the entire body of his science fiction work, and for his universe of The Culture, which is, simply, one of the great imaginative achievements in our genre.

I did not know Iain Banks personally, but I was a fan. I was honored to be a finalist with him, and would have been honored to lose this award to him. Since I did not accomplish that I will instead ask your indulgence as I dedicate this award to him and his work. He is missed; his work remains. Thank you.

An excellent field. I am delighted to be a finalist, but I have to tell you that with all my heart I hope it goes to Iain M. Banks this year, not only for this particular novel (which is excellent) but as a salute to his entire body of work. I would be very happy with that.

The winners will be announced at the end of June — good luck to everyone.

RT Book Reviews is a magazine that (as the title suggests) reviews tons of books, and every year its critics give out awards for what they’ve most enjoyed in the year, across various categories and genres. This year, I’m delighted to say that Redshirts has won the RT Reviewer’s Choice Award in the category of science fiction, in a fine field of nominees that included Blackout (Mira Grant), The Twelve (Justin Cronin), The Hydrogen Sonata (Iain M. Banks) and Sorry Please Thank You (Charles Yu). That is excellent company to be in. This is actually my second RT Reviewer’s Choice Award, the first one having been for The Last Colony. The second one is just as nice.

I’m also happy to say several friends have also won awards this year, including N.K. Jemisin (for Fantasy, with The Shadowed Sun), Elizabeth Bear (Epic Fantasy, for Range of Ghosts), Diana Rowland (Urban Fantasy Protagonist, for Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues) and Marjorie M. Liu (Urban Fantasy Worldbuilding, for The Mortal Bone). Congratulations to them and all the other winners.

This is a good place to remind people that I will be in Kansas City the first weekend of May for the RT Booklovers Convention, where they’ll be doling out these awards and I will be doing several things on the program, including a mass signing which will be open to the public. See you there.

This is excellent news:Redshirts has been nominated for the Kurd Laßwitz Preis this year, in the category of Best Foreign Novel. The Kurd Laßwitz Preis is arguably the German language’s highest science fiction award, so getting a nod for it always makes me a very happy author (winning is nice, too; I won one a couple of years ago from the German translation of The Android’s Dream).

The books and authors in the category this year are at this link, but for those of you who don’t want to bother, here’s the list (borrowed from here):

My very bad German tells me the winner will be announced in November, but that’s fine, as this is good company to keep in the meantime. I would also like to take a moment to thank my translator Bernhard Kempen, who clearly continues to do an excellent job of making me comprehensible to my German readers. Danke, Bernhard!

Wheee! Just to let you know. I’ll be updating with the entire nomination list as soon as it’s posted. I’ll post another entry with my reaction to the slate a bit later.

Update: The entire Hugo award nomination slate:

Best Novel (1,113 ballots)

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)Blackout by Mira Grant (Orbit)Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi (Tor)Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (DAW)

Best Novella (587 ballots)

After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications)The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications)On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats by Mira Grant (Orbit)“The Stars Do Not Lie” by Jay Lake (Asimov’s, Oct-Nov 2012)

Well, this is nice:Redshirts had landed on Locus magazine’s annual list of recommended reading in science fiction and fantasy, in the category of science fiction novel (oddly enough!), and also gets some love from the Locus contributors in their end-of-2012 recaps. I’m very pleased about this; I’m delighted that Redshirts is seen to be operating on more than just the “hey this is a funny book” level (although, of course, I like that it’s recognized for that too).

While I won’t go down the entire list of recommended reading, because it would be long and also, hey, buy a copy of the magazine, why don’t you, I will say that Toby Buckell, James S.A. Corey, Cory Doctorow, Charlie Stross, Karl Schroeder, Al Reynolds, Kameron Hurley and Nick Harkaway all share my category, which makes me happy because I like them all a lot as humans (and yes, I know James S.A. Corey is actually two people. I like both of him). I’m also pleased that friends pop up in other categories as well, including (but not limited to) N.K. Jemisin, Mary Robinette Kowal, Nick Mamatas, Paolo Bacigalupi, Holly Black, Justine Larbalestier & Sarah Rees Brennan, China Mieville, Allen Steele, Cat Valente, Saladin Ahmed, Madeline Ashby and Gwenda Bond. And that’s not even getting to the short fiction categories! Seriously, I know some super-awesomely creative people. I don’t know how I got that lucky.

Congrats to everyone who made the reading list this year; 2012 turned out to be an excellent year for science fiction and fantasy.

Today is not only the release of The B-Team but also the trade paperback release of Redshirts, meaning, yes! Those of you who wish to have to book in a slightly more compact, slightly cheaper print form, this is your day! Also, I imagine at some point today the price of the eBook version will drop a bit to reflect the changeover in format, so be looking for that, too.

I’ve been delighted with how well Redshirts has done out in the world; it’s my best-selling hardcover release ever and overall (including eBook and audiobook version) it’s done gangbusters. It’s fair to say that its success surprised me; I wrote it almost entirely for the sheer fun of it (“What? No one’s actually written a novel called Redshirts? Well, let me just pluck that low-hanging fruit”) and I thought it was going to be a fun little book that would do okay and kill time until The Human Division came out. But it’s clear that it’s outperformed well beyond that.

The lesson I take from that is: You never know how people will respond. Don’t worry about it and just write as well as you can. The other lesson I take from it is that all those people who think humorous science fiction doesn’t sell, or can’t sell, are really completely totally high. It sells. It sells just fine. I’ll probably talk about this a bit more at some point in the near future.

In the meantime: Look! Redshirts in trade paperback! Available at your favorite book store! If you haven’t gotten it yet, now is a fine time to do so. Also, if you want the book in hardcover, I’d hurry.

Three things science fictional and fantastical, and lumped into a single post because of it:

1. Walter Jon Williams is once again heading up Taos Toolbox, a “graduate-level” writing workshop for science fiction and fantasy, and it’s application time once more for the program. WJW tells me in a note, “We want to concentrate on giving talented, burgeoning writers the information necessary to become professionals within the science fiction and fantasy field. Though short fiction will be enthusiastically received, there will be an emphasis at Taos Toolbox on the craft of the novel, with attention given to such vital topics as plotting, pacing, and selling full-length works.” I know a lot of satisfied graduates of the toolbox, so if this sounds cool to you, hit up that link above for more details.

It’s very groovy in a late-60s sort of way, and of course clearly plays up the Star Trek association in the typography and iconography. The subtitle is “in defiance of danger” (or so Google Translate — our era’s very own universal translator! — tells me), and that’s fairly accurate in terms of the story, I suppose. Anyway, very cool.

Additionally, if you want a copy of your own, it’ll be out February 21.

3. As I contributed a story to Audible.com’s Rip-Off! anthology, in apparent contradiction to my policy of not contributing to anthologies, I have other editors pinging me about the possibility contributing to their anthologies as well.

Sorry, guys, no. Rip-Off! was a very specific project, to which I contributed for a specific, almost certainly not repeatable purpose. Generally speaking I am still not planning to contribute to anthologies for two main reasons: One, no time for it with the other projects I have planned; Two, I have discovered that I am really really really bad at writing specific-themed short stories to a deadline, and dislike being the dude editors have to badger for a story. It’s annoying for them and annoying for me. So rather than develop a reputation for always being late and kind of a dick, I just sit out anthologies entirely.

So if you’re thinking of inviting me to contribute to your anthology: Thank you, no.

I had the missus, pictured here with Redshirts, pick a number between four and twelve; she picked eleven. Then I had her pick a number between zero and five; she picked two. Then I asked for a final number between zero and nine; she picked eight. Thus was 11:28pm picked as the winning time for the contest. Then I looked to see who had popped in at 11:28pm.

No one had. Fine, I thought, then I’ll just pick whoever popped in closest to that time. That person is:

Oldcoloradonews, who popped in at 11:26pm, two minutes out.

So congratulations sir or madam, you are the winner! Now all you have to do is send me a note from the same e-mail address you used to leave the message, with your physical address and actual name, the latter for signing purposes, the former to give USPS something to do with its time. Send you note to “john@scalzi.com,” if you please.

Thanks to everyone for playing. I may give out a couple more trade paperbacks of Redshirts between now and the 15th, so keep on your toes and check back frequently to artificially inflate my visitor stats for your next chance to win!

Just arrived at the Scalzi Compound. It looks lovely. You all will get to get yours in 11 days (that’s January 15th)…

Except for the one of you I randomly select to get a copy from this comment thread! For you, I’ll mail one out tomorrow (or, like, Monday. Probably Monday). I’ll even sign it.

So let me know in the comment thread if you want it! This is open until 11:59:59pm tonight, Eastern. I’ll devise some way to randomly select a winner and let you know who it is tomorrow. One comment entry per person only, please.

Go!

Update: Yes, anyone anywhere ON THE PLANET may enter. If you’re on the ISS, piss off.